“Upgrading the competence of our teachers must be part of any reform program”
In a lot of ways the depth of our society depends on the level of education of the people.
Historically, Philippine society has always placed a premium on getting an education.
In fact, it is on top of every family’s priority.
But times have changed making education distant to many families.
So, just how educated is the Philippines compared to other countries?
Well, there are good and bad news on this subject.
Although it is sometimes difficult to get reliable figures because of so many studies being undertaken, there are some credible studies that gives a good idea on how the country is doing.
First is that out of 132 countries evaluated, we are number 77.
We have gone down in this area. With regard to university rankings, out of 1,949 registered institutions of higher learning, about 10 or less of our universities were able to get into the list of the top 2,000 this year.
Still, education in this country is considered good in this part of the world but is in urgent need of upgrading.
According to one survey, 24.4 per cent of our population are college graduates which is better than India with about 20 per cent but not something to crow about.
The country’s literacy rate is an incredible 99.27 per cent which on paper places our country up on the list.
But with our students always ending up last in international competitive exams, it puts this distinction into question.
Maybe this is because the average IQ of the country is only 81.64 which is below the world average of 82.
This also puts the country at number 82 out of 193 countries.
It may be hard for us to admit but we have been overtaken by many countries in the region over the years.
I have often wondered why this is so.
Could it be because of our politics?
Dynastic politics is never a good path to follow. Perhaps it is due to our leaders who led but did not have a vision for the country.
The country can withstand many political and economic upheavals but when this is accompanied by the deterioration of our quality of education, it becomes quite difficult to recover, sometimes even impossible.
By now, the public is quite aware that something has to be done to upgrade the quality of our education otherwise, we will always be playing catch up with our speeding neighbors.
There were efforts in the past to try to improve our educational system but ended up making matters worse.
It was during the Noynoy Aquino administration that something significant was implemented. This was the adoption of the K12 program which aligned us with the rest of the world.
Yet, after only about a decade of the program, we are again embarking on a new curriculum called Matatag program.
According to the DepED, this program will not abolish the current K12 program.
It is being undertaken to address the deteriorating quality of our education by removing a lot of the unnecessary subjects being taught to our students to concentrate only on core and essential subjects.
This way, the DepEd hopes to improve the dismal record of our students participating in international competitive exams in math, science and reading.
If this is the real intention and not to bring back the K10 program, then it is worth trying.
We should not go back to the K10 program after more than a decade of the K12 program. Going back will be another setback.
According to DepEd’s own evaluation on the selected trial schools, the results are promising. In the interest of transparency however, the DepEd should have included education experts from outside the education department so that a fair and unbiased evaluation is assured.
As we know, ever since the adoption of this K12 program, there were quite a number of attempts to do away with it.
First, it was a group of teachers spearheading the move to bring back the K10 program.
Then when this administration assumed office, the pressure on the new DepEd leadership to do something took a little more sense of urgency.
So, when the DepEd people started to use the word decongesting which is another word for shortening, some people got suspicious that the Matatag curriculum is a disguised attempt to bring back the K10 program.
But since DepEd officials have categorically said the K12 program will not be abolished, let us take their word for it.
In all the efforts to reform the educational system however, I never came across a proposal to upgrade teacher’s competence.
If our students are always ending last in international exams, whose fault is it?
As they say, mango trees can only bear mango fruits and not apples.
Upgrading the competence of our teachers must be part of any reform program.
Admittedly, curriculum overload is one of the things that needs to be addressed to improve the system.
But teacher’s competence is the number one cause why the quality of education has gone down according to one credible study.
Curriculum overload is only second.
Tinkering with the curriculum, will not amount to anything if the teachers are below par. Another is seeing to it that teachers will not be saddled with so many activities unrelated to teaching like election duties.
With the frequency of our elections, this cannot be help but affect the quality of teaching. There are also others like the constant use of schools as evacuation centers and the many holidays and vacations.
But the most important thing is for the national government to keep providing sufficient budget to support education.
Having the second biggest budget after the DPWH is not good enough.
The P758.6B appropriated for 2024 may look big but considering the size of the DepEd and work to be done, it is not nearly enough.
Furthermore, it is shocking that instead of increasing the budgets of our state universities so that more people can be given free college education, the exact opposite is happening. Unfortunately, training and education funds are always the first to be sacrificed every time budgets are cut.
Maybe that is why we are where we are when it comes to education.